11. Thank you for replying....thought my computer was going a little crazy on me....

53. happening to me today also

I am on my phone cause my dsl is down. I thought that was why I was having problems. This latest incident has convinced me to get a tablet soon. These old eyes are straining to get my du fix on this little phone!

14. 70 killed this week by Israeli strikes

Sounds a lot like an eye for an eye on crack.

I am sure people in Germany used to see things the same way. After all, they just wanted them to get out of their country and they wouldn't leave. It was not their country. Back in Poland they forced them into ghettos, small areas controlled by the germans - and if they fought back? They were essentially terrorists.

Germany had a right to defend itself right?

I don't hate Israel or it's people, nor do I hate the people of Gaza. When you take peoples' land and they fight back (like the American Indians did) is that a bad thing? Perhaps someday, someone, will break into your house and claim it for their own - and if you fight back? Well, then you are the aggressor.

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Professor's comparison of Israelis to Nazis stirs furor
The UC Santa Barbara sociologist, who is Jewish, sent images from the Holocaust and from Israel's Gaza offensive to students in his class. He has drawn denunciation and support.

Controversy has erupted at UC Santa Barbara over a professor's decision to send his students an e-mail in which he compared graphic images of Jews in the Holocaust to pictures of Palestinians caught up in Israel's recent Gaza offensive.

The e-mail by tenured sociology professor William I. Robinson has triggered a campus investigation and drawn accusations of anti-Semitism from two national Jewish groups, even as many students and faculty members have voiced support for him.

The uproar began in January when Robinson sent his message -- titled "parallel images of Nazis and Israelis" -- to the 80 students in his sociology of globalization class.

The e-mail contained more than two dozen photographs of Jewish victims of the Nazis, including those of dead children, juxtaposed with nearly identical images from the Gaza Strip. It also included an article critical of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and a note from Robinson.

....

Letters of support also have arrived from academics across the country, including one from California Scholars for Academic Freedom, which says it represents 100 professors at 20 college campuses. The group argues that the allegations have been raised against Robinson to "silence criticism of Israeli policies and practices."

Some UC Santa Barbara faculty members also are speaking up for Robinson. History professor Harold Marcuse, who attended the March meeting with the ADL's Foxman, said the pictures e-mailed by Robinson were "well within the bounds of appropriateness on campus. It's something I could have used in a course."

17. oh wow I had no idea the loss of land was so bad

21. Some suggest into the sea.

In 1948, the greater part of Palestine’s population was forcefully displaced beyond Israel’s pre-1967 sphere of control to clear the way for Israel’s anachronistic pioneering. A great number of the “transferred” ended up in the Gaza Strip. Their nearby existence quickly gave rise to an abiding Israeli wish: “If I believed in miracles,” declared David Ben-Gurion in an October 1956 Knesset speech, “I would pray that Gaza would be washed down into the sea.” After 1967, Gaza’s inhabitants not only remained above water but came under direct Israeli rule.

But how simultaneously to exclude and control these people while clearing safe space to pioneer? “It will be a difficult struggle,” explained Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday. “Gaza’s residents are not about to jump into the sea”. Until the likes of Barak can be so lucky, however, they do see ways to proceed. Fabricating pretexts for aggression on the southern front is, after all, a vibrant tradition, as old as the state itself.

29. The Jewish settlers in Palestine were ALSO "Palestinian," by definition.

These maps are extremely a-historical.

When the U.N. partitioned the state to create Israel (one DOES remember the proximate cause of WW II and the Holocaust, does one not?), the surrounding Arab states signalled they would wage war. And so they advised the Palestinian Arabs to depart, wait out the presumed swift defeat of the Jewish state, and then return to their abandoned towns. Israel welcomed the PA's to remain. In large numbers, the Arabs left.

The 1948 War was waged.

Israel won. The Arab states now had a "Palestinian Arab" refugee problem. ARABS SET UP THE REFUGEE CAMPS.

46. Jordan did not allow the Palestinians to stay after Black September? explain how there are 1.8 mil.

that's 1.8 million Jordanian citizens that are Palestinian? now as to the rest Israel refused the 775,000 Arab refugees who fled the warfare their right UN Resolution 194 to return to their homes, they eventually allowed a few but refused them citizenship for a decade after that.

15. Wow.

16. The bulldozing is part of the strategy, to raze them off their land.

As long as the settlements expand, sorry, I'm not going to cut Israel one iota of slack. Every engagement represents an expansion of Israel, and a diminishment of Palestine.

Every week there is a little more Israel. A little less Palestine.
Every week the people living in Palestine are cordoned off and blockaded. They can't even get Concrete or basic steel. Their economy is gone.

These are not equal combatants. If the Palestinians stop resisting, what will they have left? The only thing protecting them now, that I can see, is how much Israel thinks it can get away with taking at any given moment, international-criticism/sanction wise. These are not neighbors throwing shit at each other over a fence. This is two neighbors, one set cowed in the corner of their property, all the rest of which the other neighbor has taken. And the neighbor that is winning wants it ALL.

23. I suspect

you will not get an adequate reply to this post from the Israel defenders on this board, but i have been making this point for a few years. The settlement and expansion issues over the years are just the tip of the 'berg... i believe Israel has been even more reckless lately. Netanyahu is a Rush Limbaugh fan. Really, do i need to say more?

51. What Israel defenders?

Not a single one of these people defends Israel. They're simply Anti-Arab bigots who are getting their jollies.

No principle they hold, no idea they advocate, no stance they take sees the betterment of Israel. In fact most of what they espouse simply makes the problem worse, prolongs the conflict, and leads to more suffering on both sides

They simply seek the death and suffering of Palestinians and if possible, other Arabs as well. For them, Israel is just a vehicle for that goal, nothing more. Their blithe dismissal of the Israeli peace movement, their complete ignorance of its mirror among Palestinians, their rabid opposition to a Palestinian state their frequent and tortured justifications for any and all Palestinian deaths, their denial of the Nakba, their blatant, raging antisemitism against any Jew who dares question Israel's policy towards the Palestinians.. .these are your keys that these posters are not on Israel's side any more than they are on the Palestinians'.

61. Soooooo....

Israel isn't killing Arabs and making Gazans suffer an interminable isolation and subjugation? Because the destruction and killing right now should be on the conscience of the Israeli government and the people of Israel, not the 'defenders of Israel' as i described them. Keyboard warriors, you know...

56. Not all do, but all pay. Wouldn't you say? And Hamas is an ELECTED, CHOSEN government.

Murder doesn't belong in quotes when it actually happened.

BUT I'M SO GLAD YOU MENTIONED THE PERSON DRIVING THE BULLDOZER. I have no idea if he's blameless. I believe he gave a statement that was painfully prickly and defensive but that's only my impression. I tend to be against men killing women for any reason whatsoever so I don't waste a lot of time on his haunted sufferings. I'm shocked you were willing to bring it up, though. Why do YOU suppose he did it? Low blood sugar? Sexism? Too many video games? He tried to date her and she said NO?

As long as Palestinians support the murders of Jews...and as long as they keep silent about the murders of those who don't, nothing will change.

57. Maybe he did it because he hates Palestinians

Maybe he liked killing easy targets standing up to him. I don't know, nor do I care what his reasons were.

And as long as anyone supports war and violence against anyone then there will be such things. I support the harder thing to do. Make peace because everyone already knows if they have any sense at all that centuries long war hasn't worked too well thus far. War is the definition of psychotic, deranged, murderous insanity.

37. My very Catholic mother told me God had chosen us...

I was very young and we were learning about limbo and purgatory and I asked her about the people in other places that didn't go to church, etc. It made no sense to me that God would make people and punish them for not being Catholic.

27. It has ever been thus. I do mean "ever." For example:

31. People, the quote is about HAITI

I find it ironic that not one post has yet to mention the context of this quote. Dr. Farmer has done a lot of work in Haiti, often putting himself at great inconvenience to reach people in remote areas who need medical assistance.

News about suffering in Haiti often take a backseat in world news, unless vast numbers of people are affected.

I understand the quoted can apply to many different circumstances, but it would be appropriate to acknowledge the original intent of the message.

34. The quote is from a book written about Dr. Farmer

And the context/situation which provoked this statement could just as easily have been in Peru, where a lot of the book is based - not having read the book, I can't say for sure, though.

Here's the longest quote I can find, which adds some context:

“And I can imagine Farmer saying he doesn't care if no one else is willing to follow their example. He's still going to make these hikes, he'd insist, because if you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients, you're saying that their lives matter less than some others', and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world.”

― Tracy Kidder, Mountains beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World

42. Haiti is the template for what the 1-percent ownership class is all about.

I met Jean Bertrand-Aristide after he was deposed by the generals in the early 90s. He came to metro Detroit and spoke before the Cranbrook Peace Foundation.

The newspaper I then worked for didn’t see any reason for sending me to cover Aristide’s speech. The editors weren’t anti-democratic, but the events on a Caribbean island just weren’t “local” enough for their budget. So, I went on my own time.

The Cranbrook people were happy to see me. They wanted, of course, as much coverage as possible. So, they invited me and the other interested reporter types to have at him for an hour before his address.

I’m ashamed to report, at an important event in two nation’s larger media market, only a couple of CBC radio reporters out of Windsor and one local Detroit TV crew bothered to show. I was the lone print guy. Anyway…

Aristide answered every question asked in English or French. He said that the generals were deep into the wholesale cocaine importation business. Now who would be their partner in all that? Besides the wealthy landowners, for whom the Generals worked, I mean. Aristide also told us about life in Haiti, where there were four doctors to care for 4 million people. Another interesting stat: One percent of the population own 99-percent of the property.

I asked Aristide what the United States could do to help him restore democracy to Haiti? Aristide said all Poppy Doc Bush had to do was pick up the phone, call the generals and say, “Get out,” and they would quit their coup and the first democratically elected leader of Haiti in 75 years would be returned to power. Poppy Bush didn't and Aristide wasn't until Clinton sent the US Marines, many years and many Haitian lives later. Years later, Junior Bush allowed Aristide to be re-removed in a coup that saw Aristide kidnapped to South Africa for his own safety.

The reason for Bush Senior's inaction? Aristide said he didn’t know the answer, but he suspected Bush’s politics favored the landowners over the masses. “Sounds familiar,” I thought.

41. Poignant, but unfortunately, some lives do matter less, or

more accurately some lives matter more, which by default means some matter less.

For example, I would assume that nearly everyone here would think the President's life is more important than their own, I certainly believe that. The secret service, is based on the premise of one's life being less important than the life of the one(s) being protected should it come down to that issue.

Perhaps all of our military is the same, since they don't really defend the nation anymore, they defend the interests of big oil, big pharma, and the military industrial complex just to return home and get treated like third or fourth class citizens; homeless, hurt, and abandoned.

54. What's that supposed to mean? n/t

49. Perhaps so

Though the implications are interesting. For instance the anti abortion crowd would probably love this quote right up until you mentioned third world countries, at which point their brains would reset and they would go back to their pet topic.

58. What an absolutely radical, liberal, democratic idea!

60. ...

How can I turn away?
Brother/Sister go dancing
Through my head
Human as to human
The future is no place
To place your better days

Cry freedom cry
From a crowd 10,000 wide
Hope laid upon hope
That this crowd will not subside
Let this flag burn to dust
And a new - a fair design be raised
While we wait head in hands
Hands in prayer
And fall into a dreamless sleep again
And we wave our hands

Hands and feet are all alike
But gold between divide us
Hands and feet are all alike
But fear between divide us
All slip away

There was a window and by it stood
A mirror in which
He could see himself
He thought of something
Something he had never had but hoped would come along

Cry freedom, cry
From deep inside
Where we are all confined
While we wave hands in fire
Wave our hands

Hands and feet are all alike
But gold between divide us
Hands and feet are all alike
But fear between divide us,
Slip away

In this room stood a little child
And in this room this little child
She would remain
Until someone might decide
To dance this little child
Across this hall
Into a cold, dark, space
Where she might never trace her way across this crooked mile
Across this crooked page
Cry freedom, cry
From deep inside where
We are all confined
Till we wave our hands

How can I turn away?
Brother/Sister go dancing
Through my head
Human as to human
The future is no place
To place your better days

Hands and feet are all alike
But gold between divide us
Hands and feet are all alike
But fear between divide us
Hands and feet are all alike
Hear what I say
Hear what I say
Oh, so be it

How can I turn away?
Brother/Sister go dancing
Through my head
Human as to human
The future is no place
To place your better days